Zwift Racing Score is coming to the Zwift Labs club events starting July 1, 2024!
Racing Score is a ranking system that replaces traditional categories (A - D) with a 0-1000 scale, reflecting your current level based on race performances and power. This system helps Zwift in recommending the most competitive band for you, ensuring a fun, rewarding, and exciting experience as you track and improve your racing progress.
Anyone can join events, regardless of Zwift Labs club membership. However, joining the Zwift Labs club provides access to the latest updates and club chat related to this feature. Be sure to join one of the many events coming this month to see your racing score:
zRacing Monthly series (4 events daily)
Zwift Hill Climb Racing Series (all Friday races)
Zwift Crit Racing Club (3 events daily)
Zwift Women’s Racing Series (all events)
Herd Beginner Races
SZR Summer Series
Tiny Race Series
These events will provide racers the opportunity to test out and give feedback on the new and improved Racing Score feature through the Zwift Labs club chat.
Haven’t joined the Zwift Labs club yet? You can sign up here or for more details on the Zwift labs, check out the FAQ here.
You can find events using Racing Score here and to learn more about Racing Score, check out the FAQ here.
Can my score decrease? : “if you don’t race frequently, you might see noticeable changes as older results are no longer included” … I assume this is a 90 day window?
Are the results I see on ZwifterPower contributing to or influencing my Racing Score? : "Your Racing Score is not based on ZwiftPower results " … Is this something you are looking to change in time as, with events like your own ZRL, and other points based races… I may finish over the line in, for example 10th, but on points be ranked 1st. This should be factored into scoring.
What happens if I’m losing a race and I quit an event? : “Quitting an event is not treated as a loss.” … Can you clarify if someone else in a race quits, if they have a higher score, and I finish, I am rewarded with a points increase for finishing the race and beating them (as they quit)
I’m sure there will be a lot more questions and feedback as the community test out this new scoring system.
Thanks
How long is the decay window? What is in the algorithm to prevent someone from coming back after a long break to completely blow out a race they are allowed to enter (which is a problem in more CE races than not)?
The Zwift insider article covers some of your questions @Paul_Southworth
For point 3, I don’t see Zwift currently providing a consolidated view of changes in score over a period of time.
For point 4, Everyone’s ZRS appears to be visible within their profile on ZwiftPower, but currently there is no added column containing ZRS so we can’t sort or filter by this score (yet).
OK but I want it anyway . When you give people a way to measure their progress, it’s axiomatic that they want to see the history of that progress. Riders will set goals around it just like they set goals for achieving higher levels in the game.
As a user of zwiftracing.app and ZwiftPower, now that ZRS is imminent on Zwift I am thinking about it in the context of the features I use and I know others use to decide “should I pick this race?” and that is certainly one of them. I’m sure you know that people pick races based on perceived field strength so I think it would be necessary (at some point) to do it in the interest of feature parity.
So with a points system based on results as opposed to power/weight (other than the initial seeding) this seems like it will introduce more fluctuations. I know my zMap and zFTP don’t change a whole lot but it seems like this new system could be more volatile since it would recalculate after every result. So with increased fluctuations, doesn’t that increase the chance that a rider will change categories during a racing series and make them out of category for their current team? That doesn’t seem like a good thing.
The decay window is currently 90 days. However, it could stop decaying earlier based on how much your score has changed, stopping when it reaches your floor value. Your floor can increase over time, so as you improve, your floor value rises.
This should prevent the scenario you’ve described.
How do you deal with the strongest rider in category who win?
Is there placement points to ensure their score increases? They will only be racing weaker opponents…
Well done getting this out. Looks like a huge improvement from last time round. It’s been quite the journey to get here! Should see a significant improvement in racing across the board. I hope WTRL are made to use it for ZRL rather than using something bespoke.
It will be possible for a score to increase if you are the highest ranked racer in a category and you win. By how much depends on various factors including the field make up.
Just to be clear, everyone’s ZRS at the moment is based on their seed score and from here on out everyone’s ZRS will start to be affected by race results?
Correct! During the Zwift Labs test phase, only the Zwift Lab races that have score-based categories will have their results count towards racing score.
. When you give people a way to measure their progress, it’s axiomatic that they want to see the history of that progress. Riders will set goals around it just like they set goals for achieving higher levels in the game.